Mind Training Gratitude

Hey, it’s Jackson. We’re back with more practical tools to help you be at your best, both as a leader and as an individual, both personal and professional. So, what we’re going to talk about rather briefly today is this idea of mind training or mental training, and this is a theme that we’ve hit on probably in some other things you’ve been exposed to, but I just want to reiterate what this essential concept really means. I was watching a TED Talk, one of my favorite ones, by a Buddhist monk who was at the forefront of what’s called the contemplative science movement.

So, what that is, is they had these neuroscientists come in and study these monks and saw that their brains functioned actually very differently than typical people’s brains. And so, this monk, before he became a monk, was actually studying in the laboratory of a Nobel laureate. He was going to be a microbiologist, so he had this kind of scientific background. But he talks about saying, look, you think about an Olympic athlete, that’s someone who’s really trained in some sort of physical discipline for many years. They’ve totally transformed their body, their coordination, and their physical skill set to be really an elite athlete. And he says, well, with monks, it’s no different, except they’ve trained their minds.

So, they spent tens of thousands of hours literally cultivating the qualities of mind that they want to embody, right? Peacefulness, compassion, equanimity, composure, joy, etc., and they’ve become essentially Olympic athletes of mind training. And then, when you look at some of those studies, you see, wow, they really are kind of off the chart in terms of how their brains operate. And so, this is not to say you need to become a monk, and it would probably be impractical for you to meditate for a few hours, but the principle is really powerful, and it’s that the brain adapts; it physically changes based on how it is used. So, I’ll say that again: the brain physically changes, it adapts based on how it’s used.

And that should make some intuitive sense, right? Because when you practice a certain skill set or a certain mode of operating, right, you tend to get better at it. If you think back when you were learning to drive, right? When you first started, everything was very sort of intentional and uncertain, and you almost had to use high levels of concentration and focus just to drive. And now, it’s like boom, autopilot, you just get in there and do it. Well, it’s because those pathways in your brain have adapted, right, to become more efficient in that task of operating a vehicle, right? Just in the same way that if you practice a certain motion, like a golf swing or lifting weights, right, the body, it gets easier because the body not only develops muscles that support that movement, right, but also there’s more coordination for that movement.

So, what I’ll have you do is, wherever you’re at, just close your eyes for a moment. Okay, keep them closed and just think of, try to count, right, with your eyes closed, how many things you can see in the room you’re in, or in the space you’re in, that are red, the color red. Okay, now go ahead, open your eyes, and now, how many things do you see that are the color red? Go ahead for a second, take a look around. Yeah, and hopefully, your room or the space you’re in isn’t a total oddball room, but what you typically find is, before, you maybe could think of like one thing, but now you start to look around and you see, oh, well actually, there’s that fire alarm over there, there’s this little light on the computer, or oh, that person over there has a little red patch on their shirt, or whatever, right?

And so, the mechanism or the idea behind this teaching is that when you prime the brain, the brain is essentially a pattern recognition machine, right? And so, when you prime it to look for something, right, it starts to pick up on those patterns. Now, where the concept of mind training comes in is that when you do such a thing repeatedly, remember your brain starts to adapt to that usage pattern or to that mode of operating. So right there, if you started looking for the color red, looking for the color red, and you were to do that every day, I wouldn’t recommend that necessarily, right? But you’re going to get really good at noticing different colors and different patterns. So, same logic: if you start to look for what’s going right, or you start to look for gratitude or things that you have to be excited about, it’s not like I’m just trying to be the positive thinking guy here, but quite literally, from a neuroscience perspective, right, your brain is going to adapt to see those patterns more readily. Understand?

So, that’s why this is so powerful. So, what I would encourage you to do is think about some aspect of mind training. It could be gratitude, which I’m going to share an activity about in a second, but it could be humor, it could be calm or relaxation, it could be focus. Whatever sort of mode that you want to engage in more often, I want you to start to think about what it would look like to have a little bit of mind training for that, some mental fitness. Are you going to meditate for 5 minutes each morning? Are you going to list 10 things you’re grateful for? Are you going to write down five things you’re excited about? Whatever it is, right? If you do it repeatedly, your brain will adapt.

But here is a specific practice that, if you give it a shot, I think can be absolutely life-changing. So, I want you to pick someone who has had an impact in your life, a positive impact in your life, someone that really means a lot to you. And ideally, this is someone that you could talk to, or you know, they’re still alive, they’re still in your life in some capacity. Okay, now I want you to go ahead and keep the video on as you do this. I want you to take, we’ll say, five full minutes. So, go ahead, if you are doing this in groups or in pairs, you can start a timer, or if someone’s facilitating this, you can start a five-minute timer. And I want you to just, and make sure you follow along with my instructions here, please, I want you to just write, why is this person significant to you? What is the impact that they’ve had in your life, and what do you admire about them? Understood? So, you’re just writing this down. What do you have to be grateful for with respect to that person, right? What’s the impact, what’s the significance, what do they mean to you? Go ahead, writing, and please pause this video and wait for about five minutes so everyone has a chance to do this, or in your groups, you have a chance to do this, and then come back and press play.

Okay, so you’re back. Here’s what I want you to do. So, I want you to take a picture of that. If you wrote it down on your phone, I want you to copy it, and option number one is to call that person and read it to them. That’s ideal. Option number two, though, if you can, is like I said, send a picture, copy it down into a notes app, text it to them, and then just wait. And now, I’ll say, if you need to put something at the beginning saying like, hey, this is a little exercise, or hey, I just wanted to share this, you basically tell them you don’t want them to think that you’re dying in the hospital or something, right? So, give them a little bit of a heads-up, say, hey, everything’s okay, I’m not freaking out, but I want to share this with you. And I promise you that if you give this a shot, it can be an absolutely life-changing experience.

And the real lesson here is that you’re practicing this mind training, this idea of becoming an Olympic athlete with respect to your state of mind. You’re actually practicing building that capacity for gratitude and appreciation. So, I hope you enjoy that, and I’ll see you next time.